Ugandan Court Dismisses Charges Against British Theater Producer

Cecil says, “I think really the local culture is a lot more tolerant than it looks from the outside.”

A British playwright, David Cecil was jailed in Uganda last September, and faced up to two years imprisonment for producing a play focusing on the difficulties faced by homosexuals. Homosexuality and homosexual acts are illegal in Uganda, but a judge dismissed the charges last week citing a lack of evidence. CNN reports.

This ruling came a month after the president of Uganda, Yoweri K. Museveni made a statement saying,

We shouldn’t persecute homosexuals, or persecute homosexual acts.

One can only hope this is a true turning point for gay rights in Uganda.

Comments

I’m torn by this situation and those like it. I don’t want to see anyone suffer because of their life choices let alone because of how they were born but I also don’t want the West going to other places and saying “hey, we’re more civilised than you, your cultural norms are inferior so adopt ours”. The West didn’t decide black people had the right to eat in the same restaurant as white people until pretty recently and yet the West is already back on its high horse? Very conflicted by this issue.

The countless deaths of unarmed black men by police, coupled with persistent activism from communities of color, has forced the conversation of race on America, causing officials to reevaluate, among many things, how policing is done.